Inventor recognition programs, also known as patent tracking systems, are used by many companies to reward and encourage inventors who conceive of patentable ideas and inventions. While inventor recognition programs are as diverse as companies themselves, there are many aspects of inventor recognition programs which are common to almost every company. For example, an inventor is usually given a financial bonus upon the occurrence of an award event such as the filing of the patent application and issuance of the patent. The inventor may be rewarded when the patent application is published as well. The inventor is also rewarded financially when the company obtains a certain amount of royalties from the patent. These royalty awards are commonly referred to as plateau awards. One example of the royalty levels for plateau awards is a 0.5% commission on the amount of royalty when the total royalty reaches $10,000, $100,000, $1,000,000, and $10,000,000. Persons of ordinary skill in the art are aware of other events which trigger award payments in an inventor recognition program.
One of the problems associated with inventor recognition programs is that the occurrence of award triggering events, authorization of award payments, and actual award payments are difficult to track and update. Tracking these events becomes even more problematic as more inventors, patent applications, patents, and royalties are added to the company's intellectual property portfolio. The existing solutions to the problem have addressed the issue of tracking the patent prosecution and royalties, not the award triggering events, payment authorizations, or payments. Therefore, a need exists for a method of tracking the occurrence of events which trigger an award, the authorization of payment of awards, and the actual payment of awards in a company's inventor recognition system.
Another problem specific to incentive programs like inventor recognition programs is the need to authorize payment of the award. Because it is desirable to have the inventor's manager or supervisor review and approve disbursement of an award payment from payroll, the payment authorization step cannot be removed from the award process. However, there is currently no prior art solution which allows an inventor to check the status of award authorization and, if necessary, send a reminder to the inventor's manager. Therefore, a need exists in the art for a system which allows an inventor to view the status of award triggering events, authorization of award payments, and payment of awards. The need extends to a system which automatically reminds the manager to authorize award payment and also allows the inventor to manually remind his manager to authorize the award payment.
The prior art has previously addressed some of the needs identified above. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,183,362 (the '362 patent) entitled “National Customer Recognition System and Method” discloses a customer award tracking system for casinos. The '362 patent tracks the customers' gambling activity at various casinos and grants awards to the customers based on the gambling activity. However, the '362 patent is limited in that it does not disclose a system for tracking payment authorizations or allowing the customers actively participate in the award tracking process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,244 (the '244 patent) entitled “Computerized Incentive Program with Plateau Pricing and Remote Award Redemption” discloses an award tracking system for customers. The '244 patent offers a plurality of products obtainable by redeeming award points. The products are offered at various plateau levels. However, the '244 patent is limited in that it does not disclose a method for tracking the authorization of award payments. The '244 patent also does not disclose a method for allowing the customers to actively participate in the award tracking process.
Consequently, what is needed beyond the prior art is a method and system for tracking award triggering events, award payment authorizations, and award payments. The need extends to a method and system for automatically reminding managers of the need to authorize payment of the awards. Finally, the need includes a method and a system for allowing the inventor to monitor the award triggering events, award payment authorizations, and award payments which also reminds the manager of the need to authorize an award payment.